Author Archives: icesnake

You’ve Got a Virus!

  How to remove stubborn PC viruses This article was prompted by my experience the past two days with disinfecting one of my customer’s computers. He had managed to pick up the Trojan:Win64/Sirefef.Y infection, which typically produces this dialog box: It also prevents the Windows Security Center from running, shuts off the Windows Firewall, and […]

Interview: JABstone founder Joe Bureau

Due to a recent stroke in the family, I recently was motivated to look for a method of helping non-verbal people communicate without making everyone around them learn sign language, or play charades. There are a number of apps available for smartphones and tablets, notably the iPad and the Android platform. After comparing features (and […]

Streaming your Own Media at Home

You’ve cut the cable and now you want to be able to watch videos, listen to music, and look at the (thousands!) of digital photos you’ve taken; but you (or your spouse) don’t want that “big, noisy, ugly computer” in the living room, where your biggest HDTV is. Fear not, my friend! If you already […]

Netflix killed by the MPAA: Where do we go now?

By this time you probably know that Netflix has been forced to increase their prices by sixty percent in order to remain profitable after Hollywood decided to kill the golden goose (e.g., jack up the prices that Netflix has to pay for streaming movies and rental DVDs). My wife is adamant that we’re going to […]

And the Beat(down) Goes On: Getting Ripped Off in HDMI

Back in March of this year (2011), an electronics firm in Australia took the unprecedented step of letting consumers know that people who were paying more than AUS$10 (which is also $10 US, near enough) were getting ripped off. Kogan posted an offer on their blog to provide a free HDMI cable to anyone who […]

Quick Review: Google Docs Unleashed (video)

I subscribe to the daily email newsletter from How-To-Geek and often find it informative or amusing, and sometimes it saves me some money. Today it saved me some money. It offered a link to AppSumo.com for a free video tutorial, entitled Google Docs Unleashed. This video is apparently geared towards the Marketing type, or an App […]

Big News from the number 1 MMORPG

That’s Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, in case you don’t already know. If you listen to The Instance, you probably already know. Effective this past Tuesday, 27 June 2011, there have been some important changes for players who had not yet bought the first expansion (The Burning Crusade) and those who are interested in trying WoW. […]

Build your own Chromebook for cheap

Looking for a Chromebook so you can cut your dependency on expensive commercial software? Well, I’ve got good news, and bad news. The good news is that you can buy one now. The bad news is that they start at $350 and go up. If you’re not absolutely sure that a Chromebook will do what you need, that’s a lot of money to drop on an experiment.

How to Create a Digital Distribution System for Video and Music

Unless you’ve been living in a cave since June of 1999, you know that most people like the convenience of digital music and movies. You also know that the record labels (RIAA) and movie studios (MPAA) have been falsely claiming for that entire time that piracy is cutting into their “legitimate” sales. I’m going to […]